Mr. Hoover

On stationery of the Republican National Committee, in a circular letter to the Republican ladies of Virginia, signed by National Committeewoman Mrs. Willie W. Caldwell, appeared the phrase: "... Romanized and rum-ridden. . . ."

Nominee Hoover spoke out: "Whether this letter is authentic or a forgery,* it does violence to every instinct that I possess. I resent and repudiate it.

"I cannot fully express my indignation at such circulars. Nor can I reiterate too strongly that religious questions have no part in this campaign. . . .

"I have repeatedly stated that neither I nor the Republican Party want support on that basis. . . ."

Tennessee made ready to hear three Hoover speeches--two in Johnson City, one at Elizabethton, on Oct. 6. The date for the New York speech was moved up to Oct. 13. Someone asked the Nominee if he had no superstition about that date. "No," he replied, "I haven't. Besides, it's not Friday."

Nominee Hoover bought a new automobile, a dark blue Lincoln limousine. The Washington police issued him a license tag--Number W-100.

One John Steven McGroarty wrote, for the arch-Republican New York Herald-Tribune, an interview-article which contained two items of news about Nominee Hoover:

(1) "What do you suppose he regards as a disappointment in his strikingly successful life? Well, it is really one of his disappointments that he seems to have failed to qualify as a humorist. He envies humorists--those who have the power to bring into the hearts of men the gods' good gift of laughter."

(2) " 'The only scar I bear,' he said, 'is on my foot. I could show to you now if I were to take off my shoe. I got it by stepping on a red-hot iron chip in my bare feet at my father's blacksmith shop.' "

*It was authentic.